Far From Home
by TheGrandGiftOfSilence
Summary: OOC. Tobias Eaton is a soldier of war, born to the Commander of the military unit, Marcus Eaton, and the Captain of the Dauntless regiment. When a new Private is captured it is his duty to bring him back safely, so he leads the rest of his regiment into the Erudite Headquarters of Chicago on a rescue mission, unsuspecting of the secrets that lie within... Rated T for War Themes.


**Hello, my little Minions!**

**I have yet to do a Divergent story but I thought it would be nice to stray from The Mortal Instruments for a while :) **

**So, this story is called '**_Far From Home'_**, from the song by Five Finger Death Punch, which is about war and the possibilities of not coming back. As you can tell, this story may not have a happy ending...**

**Anyway, we shall get straight on with the story. See you at the bottom!**

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**SUMMARY:**

**OOC. Tobias Eaton is a soldier of war, born to the Commander of the military unit, Marcus Eaton, and the Captain of the Dauntless regiment. When a new Private is captured it is his duty to bring him back safely, so he leads the rest of the regiment into the Erudite Headquarters of Chicago on a rescue mission, unsuspecting of the secrets that lie within...  
Rated T for War Themes.  
**

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**_'Another day in this carnival of souls,_**  
**_Another night settles in as quickly as it goes._**  
**_The memories of shadows, ink on the page,_**  
**_And I can't seem to find my way home...'_**  
_Far From Home - Five Finger Death Punch_

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"Hey, Mom. I know it's been a while, but I had to come and see you before we leave. It's been difficult to find the time, with Marcus being so demanding."

Sitting on the grass with my legs crossed in front of me, I lean forward and set the bundle of yellow daffodils at the foot of the cross. My Mother's marker, the only thing to prove that she had existed in my life.

We'd been based in the wastelands at the edge of Illinois for four months, where my Mom had been Marcus' second-in-command, helping to lead the attack against the Erudite. She took a group of six soldiers to what used to be Crystal Lake on a raid for supplies to try and boost the moral of the soldiers; that there was hope if you looked for it.

When we hadn't heard from her in a few days Marcus sent my regiment to find her, and when we got there, we were ambushed by the Candor, the group working together with the Erudite. It was close but we were lucky to finish the Candor off and recover the bodies of Mom and the six other men that went with her, killed in a grenade explosion as a trap that Candor had set against us.

And now here she was, buried under a patch of grass not deep enough with the words 'Evelyn Johnson-Eaton' written on the lopsided wood cross.

I don't have the effort to mourn her death, to cry, to show that I care she's gone, but we've never really been a family anyway. Marcus had always been an awful man, one greedy for power and control, and Mom had followed him to protect herself, and to try and protect me against him. Not that it had ever really helped.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you Mom. You deserved much better than me or Marcus as a family, but you stuck with us anyway, and I guess that made you the strongest soldier of all."

I sigh and press my hand against the grooves of her name.

"Anyway, I came to say that we're leaving tomorrow. I don't when I'll be back; to be honest, I don't know if I'll ever be back. Anything could happen now." I shrug and take my hand away from the cross, wiping it across my face, peeling back sweat from the heat. "Marcus has gone mad, I think. Your death was something to fuel his power, but now he's getting out of control and you were the only one who could keep him calm.'

"I just want this all to stop, Mom," I laugh, my eyes still locked on her name. "Strange, isn't it? I don't think I can even remember our lives before this one. I'm so far away, so far away from myself that I'm not sure I exist."

I drag myself to my feet carefully and look at the stretch of land around me, covered in make-shift crosses with names grooved into them. These people deserved so much more than to fight in this war and then be buried like this.

Erudite had brought about the downfall of the government in 2054, resulting in war and death on a massive scale, a scale the planet could not keep up with. I was forced to flee my home in Chicago 10 years ago with my family before it was almost destroyed, and now, ironically, Chicago was where Erudite were making their next move and was where Marcus was headed, to try and end the war once and for all.

"It's weird," I say, looking down again at my Mom. "We're going home now, but I'm not sure what home means anymore. It feels so much further away; sometimes it's hard to believe that this is a post-apocalyptic world. Sometimes I think I might wake up and it'll all be a nightmare, but it's not. And now we're going home, Mom. Without you.'

"I don't think Marcus is trying to end this war, Mom," I breathe out, running a hand through my short hair. "I feel like it's an excuse to get closer to the Erudite, like he has some ulterior motive that he's going to act on soon. I'm not sure how to stop him if that's what happens."

The wind lifts around me and it's almost as if I can feel the souls of the dead, the murdered and the innocent, swept up by the breeze and tossed into the air. Unrested souls with a million reasons to come back and haunt us, and I shiver, grasping my Mom's dog tags that are hanging loosely around my neck.

"Tobias!" A voice shouts in the distance, and I turn to see Zeke and Uriah waving at me, signalling me to hurry.

"I suppose I better go, Mom," I say, bending down in front of the cross and unhooking her dog tags from around my own. "Here, I'll give you these back," muttering as I place them next to the daffodils. "I don't need them, and they belong to you. I'll be back when I can Mom."

I stand and place two fingers to my lips, then pressing them against her marker as a salute to my mother and the rest of the dead.

My Father gave me control of the Dauntless regiment because he believes that I am brave.

I am not brave.

I turn away from Evelyn's shallow grave and walk towards Zeke and Uriah at the end of the 'graveyard', my silence as a last goodbye to the dead laid to rest here.

My name is Tobias Eaton. I am 26 years old.

I am not Dauntless.

I am human, just like everyone else, and I am scared of not making it out of the war alive.

"Come on, Tobias!" Uriah yells, his form getting bigger as I approach. "Marcus needs you!"

I smile and take my time, picking my way through the sea of crosses deliberately, respectfully, like these people deserve.

Not all of us will survive.

We are all soldiers of war here, one way or another.

And we're all too far from home to find our way back.

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**And that's the Prologue, my Minions!**

**Don't worry, the next chapters will be much longer than this one, this is just an introduction to the story :)**

**Anyway, I hope you like it and you'll stick with me on this fanfic. I aim to get it updated at least once a week, but we'll see where it takes us. We've got a long way to go!**

**So you know what to do...**

**Follow/Favourite/Review?**

**Thanks for reading guys, see you in the next chapter!**

**- TheGrandGiftOfSilence**


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